After some 11th-hour schedule re-shuffling, Darren Star's brand-spanking new series, Cashmere Mafia, finally took flight last night. It was originally supposed to debut Thursday, January 3.

Cashmere Mafia marks Darren Star's return vehicle to series showrunning after his highly successful Sex and the City, which finally came to its conclusion in 2004.  The show also offers actress Lucy Liu another chance to further spread her wings and take on a new persona, something she admits to welcoming.

“I always want to try something different, something new,” the actress, who plays Mia Mason on Cashmere Mafia, said.  “I don't want to get to the point where I'm only doing action movies all the time and people expect that of me.  I think [my roles] should always be kind of this, sort of strange, sort of unpredictable.”

Liu's Mason is a complete departure from the characters she's done in the past, like the pointedly edgy Ling Woo from Ally McBeal and her martial arts-suave Alex Munday in the Charlie's Angels films.

“I love when people sort of shake their heads,” Liu continued.  “I want to be as fresh as the shows are or as the ideas are.  I don't want to continue to explore the same thing, because after a while it doesn't become challenging for you as an artist.”

She went on to say that Cashmere Mafia itself is also a breath of fresh air from executive producer Star, and his Sex and the City.

“In Sex and the City, it was more about women and their relationships with men,” Liu pointed out.  “And this is not just relationships with men.  It's about relationships with men in the workplace.  We are actually showing the characters working and succeeding and not succeeding.”

The actress is optimistic that Cashmere Mafia and her character in it will become relevant to viewers and strike a familiar chord with them.

“I'm hoping there's an emotional connection with the audience,” she said.  “I think that it's always nice to have entertainment, but if the audience invests themselves in what happens to the characters and they care about them as much as we care about them, then we'll have something to go on.  Otherwise, it's a constant diet pill.  You take it and you don't remember what happens.”


-Rosario Santiago, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Boston Herald
(Image Courtesy of ABC)